20161008

I am just a guy. I am a guy who is in a room. Being. I focus my thoughts on my breathing. My mind strays. What did I tell to that coworker? Why did I say that? Fuck. I refocus to my breathing. I breathe in and out. I am not counting. I am not allowing myself to stray from the focus on breath. The refocus isn't so much a thought. It is an action. In the moment, it has no purpose at all. I simply do it. There is no more or less to the action of focusing the mind on breath. It is simply what I am doing. I am being. I am in the moment. My thoughts go back to a childhood memory. There is the sound of crashing, a roar of wind louder than anything I had heard before. My sister is yelling. My older brother rolls over pretending to be asleep. My sister sounds panicked. I hear her opening windows and yelling for us to get up. Refocus. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. All other thoughts fade away. I am back in the moment. There is no me. There is breath. I am in the moment. A thought about a recurring dream. A bright light is coming in the window. The sound of a helicopter. I am weightless and unable to move. I float down the hall. I panic. I am unable to move. Unable to speak. Unable to scream. I am at the top of the stairs. There is a feeling of vertigo and a lurch of movement like the crest of roller coaster or a small hill at speed in a car, but it lasts much longer. I am floating down the stairs and out the door. Refocus. No more thought. Just breath. I am not me. I am a guy in a room, being, breathing. I am in the moment. In. Out. In. Out. What should I eat when I finish this exercise? Stop. Refocus. In. Out.

I awake. I rise. I pull on some clothes. I walk out the door, and down to the exercise room. I turn on the elliptical. I put my headphones on. I turn on some music. I run. I come home. Shower. Water is nice. I pull an orange out of the fridge. I brew some coffee. While the coffee is brewing I eat the orange, and I drink some water. I think about the texture and taste of the orange. It's sweet, juicy. It's quite an enjoyable sensation. The coffee is done brewing so I pour my cup. Add a little sugar, just a little cream. I sip. Delicious balance of sweet and bitter.

I sit down on the floor in the middle of the living room of my apartment. I bring my attention to my breath. I breathe in. I breathe out. I am not me. I am a guy, in a room, being. Again more thoughts try to arise. Again, I kill them. I kill me. I am not me. I am a guy being. I breathe. There are no thoughts. Continue for months.

Something happens when you do something like this long enough. You begin to analyze your thoughts, and you realize that the thoughts are not yours. You do not summon them. They arise. Whether they are memories of events in youth, a memory of a dream, a memory of work, a thought about trivial future events, the thoughts are not actually yours. You did not choose to think them. They happened to you. Where do they come from? Some hidden place in the mind? Perhaps the subconscious? There is some animal part of the body that attempts to make you focus on things that the body feels are important. A silent servant who is directing your actions. Interesting. How much of me is me? How much is the silent servant? I am an amalgam. In silence, and without thought, this beast is tamed. I begin to be able to direct thought after a period of simply being. I begin to be able to prolong the state of control and mastery of self. I begin to become me after gaining the ability to not be me. I am not the person I was before the exercise. I am someone different. I am something different. I have become sentient. No longer am I merely conscious and out of control.

I have the ability to direct my action. I have the ability to live what I believe and to do so deliberately. I analyze my thoughts. I analyze my beliefs. I find inconsistency. I eliminate that inconsistency after a determination of truth, intention, effect.

I breathe in. I breathe out. I am no one. I am nothing. I am all things. I am in the moment. I am the moment. All things are individual, but all things are connected by cause and by consequence. I breathe in. I breathe out. I have no thoughts. I breathe in. I breathe out. I am a guy in a room, being.